


Chicken Soup

by abigail89



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 12:47:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4920205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abigail89/pseuds/abigail89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Challenge:  One gets sick, the other gets worried<br/>Summary:  One gets sick, the other worries, and both end up being cared for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chicken Soup

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a Harry/Ron FQFest, October 2006
> 
> Beated at the time by shocolate, who wanted a Hot!Wet!Ron

It starts with something as simple as a cough, and you don’t worry because he’s had a cough before. With sniffles and a bit of fever. But he’s tough and always fights it off. You give him a Pepper-Up Potion that Hermione taught you to brew perfectly, along with a mild sleeping draught, and Bob’s your uncle! In the morning he hops out of bed, ready and willing and hard as a hammer, falling all over you because he’s been sick and feels badly about ignoring you, which of course, you protest wildly. But not too loudly because before you can get the next, “Oh forget it! You were ill for the love of Merlin!” he’s on his knees sucking your cock down his recovered throat.

And then you think that maybe _you’ll_ be the one who needs that Pepper-Up Potion just to make it into the office on time this morning. _It’s that good_. You’re grateful and loving, and you still protest that it was totally unnecessary, but you think, _Hell, yeah, I deserved that for nursing you and missing you and feeding you chicken soup and lying awake at night because of your hacking and snorting._ You feel a tiny bit guilty but shake it off, knowing that the next time you’re ill, he’ll be the one being sucked off.

But this time--this time it’s different. The sniffles become a full-out runny hosepipe that drips constantly. The fever creeps up from the “Oh, just a nap and you’ll be as right as rain” level up to the “I think we might need to Floo the Healer” one. And the coughing—Godric’s balls! The cough is deep and phlegmy, and the goo he hacks up is a nasty shade of green with a bit of—oh shit!—is that _blood_? 

You try to remain calm because that’s what you do when your best mate is sick, you give him your easiest grin whilst smoothing his hair on his scary hot forehead. “It’ll be okay, love. I’ll just pop round to Hermione and ask her to help me with a nice Cooling Potion, the one we both like so much.”

And if it’s not the coughing or the gummy green nose or the high fever that makes you worry, it’s definitely the glazed eyes and the listless non-shrug he gives you. _That’s_ when you worry.

*~*

“Hermione?” Harry shouts through the Floo. “Hermione? Are you here?”

He waits for as long as he can stand it—only three seconds—before he shouts again, this time with a little more desperation in his voice. “Hermione! I need you!”

He really, really wants to see her rushing towards the fireplace from her bedroom, pulling on her wrap as she does. Harry usually makes some comment on the state of the nightgown since he’s endlessly amused by the array of animal-themed nighties the girl manages to find (Merlin! She’ll never get married wearing those things to bed!!) It’s the way that they’ve continued their close friendship, now that he and Ron are together, joking about the fact that they’ve both had Ron (completely ignoring the fact that they’d had each other too, and that what they should really do is just fuck social convention and be a trio with really hot sexual benefits, but Hermione is rather a stickler about ‘appearances’.) Despite her stodginess he really, really needs to see her in her bunny or Kneazle or Crup pyjamas and he really needs her help to brew a Cooling Potion since his is usually crap, and he’s out of willow bark.

Harry calls for her again, but she never comes. _Fine time for her to get a life,_ he thinks. He briefly considers just Apparating to the chemist around the corner, but remembers that it’s the middle of the night and Muggle analgesics don’t work well on wizards, especially pure-bloods. Then in an act of pure desperation, he tumbles through the call, knowing there’ll be hell to pay on several levels. He lands in a heap of ash and curses, scrambling up, paying little attention to the big black spot he’s left on the carpet, and heads for Hermione’s stash of medicinal herbs.

He rummages for a moment, thinking quickly what he should being finding: willow bark, marigold seeds, mert…mert something. He finds her copy of _Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions_ and flips through it quickly. Mertlap! Essence of Mertlap…how the hell could he not remember that one! He bundles the ingredients into his t-shirt and tumbles back through the Floo.

At once, Harry sets out the cauldron, the silver spoon, the brass scales, the crystal phials, the pot of magical fire, pausing only to check on Ron, who seems to have worsened in the few moments Harry has been away from him. He’s moaning now, the fever affecting his muscles as he’s trembling. Harry panics a little, but tamps it down to make shushing noises. “It’s alright, Ron,” he says, “I’m here. I’m going to make you a bit of Cooling Potion to bring down the fever. Here”—Harry pours him a cup of water from the pitcher nearby—“try drinking this.”

Ron raises up slightly to touch the cup to his dry lips and takes just a small sip. Harry tries to encourage him to drink more, but Ron refuses, protesting weakly with a grimace and a hoarse whispered, “No.”

Harry is alarmed at how hot Ron feels. Ron is the hottest person he knows, figuratively speaking as well as physically. Harry used to always be cold, but ever since they started sleeping together, usually with Harry wrapped around some part of Ron’s body, Harry has been toasty and sleeping more like, well, Ron. But this is unnatural. No one should be this hot.

Harry runs back to the kitchen, opens his medical potions book to the fevers section, and begins to line up his ingredients in the order he’ll add them: base of spring water, mint, willow bark, essence of mertlap…Merlin! There’s not enough spring water.

He panics more strongly this time, thinking quickly. _Should I? Can I? Well, yes. But just this once…._

He throws open the window, and concentrates: _“Accio one bottle of Juniper’s Secret Spring Water!”_ he hisses under his breath.

Somewhere, somehow, with a whistle, a large green bottle appears through the trees and smacks in to Harry’s hand. He opens it and splashes some into the cauldron. “Bugger!”

Harry steps back, and takes a deep, cleansing breath. _I can do this,_ he thinks. He siphons off the spilled liquid, and measures out the correct amount, pours it in, and lights the fire under it.

For the next twenty-eight minutes, he enters ‘The Zone’, a quiet, concerted effort to pay close attention to the directions, the time, the agitation, and the temperature of the potion. He adds ingredients, spells his wand to alarm for the next step, and carefully monitors the progress. As expected, the bubbling liquid turns from green to clear to icy blue and then to pearly white as he adds, stirs and simmers. In the final stage it turns clear again. Finally, the potion settles in to simmer for forty-nine minutes, and Harry races back to the bedroom to check on Ron.

He’s sleeping, though still hot. Harry fusses over him—adding a blanket, shoving an errant foot back under the covers, clearing the path to the lav of dirty socks, a broomstick, three shoes, and the latest issue of _Quidditch Monthly_. Harry sits beside Ron, rubbing his mate’s shoulder. _Please, if anyone’s out there, please let him be all right_ …

Harry slumps beside the wheezing Ron, repeating his prayer over and over, and as the panic and adrenaline wear off, he drifts off, not noticing that he’s left his wand in the kitchen.

*~*

It begins with a long day and a panicked night over the fact that your best mate has a terrible cough and a scary high fever, and ends with you snuggled into the bed beside him. And then you awake with a start and a loud “Oh, shit!”

You leap out of bed and race to the kitchen to find that your Cooling Potion has congealed into a dark brown mass and your best mate, the one you thought was dying, sitting up at the table with a steaming mug of tea and reading the early edition.

“Ron!” you exclaim. “You’re better! You are, aren’t you?” You feel his forehead and are greatly relieved to find it at its normal level of hotness.

“Yeah,” he says with a grin, voice husky with that just-getting-over-something thickness. “Yeah, I woke up in the night to take a leak, and remembered my mum sent over a bottle of ‘Mrs. Goodnight’s Fever Potion’ and I took that. Works real quick.”

You sag as you remember seeing the distinctive magenta bottle of Mrs. Goodnight’s in the cabinet and feel the rising tide of idiocy in your gut. The mental forehead slapping commences, and you’re heading towards full-on stupidity when you feel your best mate slip his hand around your neck.

“And you made me Cooling Potion in the night. Aw, Harry,” Ron says, pulling you in closer.

The impact of what has just transpired hits you like a ton of hippogriff dung, and you’re still deciding if you should be relieved, pissed off, sleepy, relieved, or any number of emotions when you feel dry, minty lips ghost over yours and a warm hand skirting up under your shirt. You hear a soft, “You took good care of me, so now let me take care of you,” whispered in your ear. 

You protest, slightly, as your hand is pulled and your body follows it back to the bedroom. You say, “It wasn’t anything you wouldn’t do for me if I was ill,” as he pushes you onto the bed.

You continue to object that you expect absolutely nothing in return because, after all, what are best mates for, as he pulls off your shirt and tugs down your jeans and dispatches your boxers, all of which end up in the nicely cleared path from the bed to the lav.

You say, “Really, it’s okay. I love taking care of you because…ungh!” as a hot, wet mouth descends on your cock, and the thick tongue of your best mate licks you from root to tip and back again and pulls and pulls and pulls until that hot mouth pulls your very soul right up and out and gives you a new vision of life.

And you think, as you are wrapped up by your very naturally warm best mate in his arms and legs, with just the tiniest smidge of guilt, Oh, yeah, I deserved that for worrying all night and raiding Hermione’s stores and boy, is she ever gonna kill me, and I’d better get another blow job tonight and remember that no one is keeping score.

Because that’s what best mates do. Take care of each other. And sometimes you don’t need the chicken soup.


End file.
